Hot Property: Columbia Heights Aldi store

Type: Retail

Building size: 17,886 square feet

Developer: Aldi Inc.

Architect: I & S Group, Faribault

Details: The Columbia Heights City Council has given the go-ahead for work to begin on a new Aldi Foods store at Central and 50th Avs. NE., on the site of two former businesses that will be demolished.

The council in April approved a request by the Germany-based discount food retailer to combine the sites of the vacant former Denny's restaurant at 5025 Central Av. NE. and Café Donuts at 5001 Central into one lot.

The panel also OKed final site plans for the 17,886-square-foot grocery store.

Ryan Stemmons, Aldi's director of real estate, told City Council members that the grocer is hoping to have the Columbia Heights store open before Thanksgiving.

The location at 50th & Central is a key spot on the city's main commercial artery. It's along a fast-food row that has seen a considerable amount of redevelopment in recent years.

The city opened one of its new municipal Top Valu liquor stores at 4950 Central Av. NE. in 2008, only a block from the Aldi's site.

Minnesota restaurant franchisor Border Foods the next year replaced its old Taco Bell outlet on same the block with a brand-new facility as well as a new Sonic Drive-In next door on the site of a former car wash.

Also new to the block is a Jimmy John's franchise at 4955 Central Av. NE. that replaced a razed former Jiffy Lube.

It also isn't the first time Aldi has made plans for a store in the area.

The grocer was part of a planned mixed-use development first pitched in 2004 as a commercial adjunct to the Grand Central Lofts condominiums at 47th and Central Avs. NE.

The plans were later downsized and project renamed Grand Central Commons, but ultimately never got off the ground.

DON JACOBSON